


At the Day's End

by allthemeadowswide



Category: When Calls the Heart (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 09:19:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13431696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthemeadowswide/pseuds/allthemeadowswide
Summary: It’s interesting, she thinks, that her life has brought her here, to this place and this point—that the choices both she and Frank made separately threw them in one another’s path.





	At the Day's End

**Author's Note:**

> This contains a handful of personal headcanons about Abigail and Noah's relationship; since the series hasn't gone into any detail there, this is of course just my interpretation. I love the idea of Frank and Noah being very different people who were exactly what Abigail wanted/was looking for at two very different times in her life. Originally I had more of the other characters written into this because I think they're important to Abigail's character development (Clara, Becky, Cody, Bill, Henry), but I had to cut a lot to maintain focus on the transition from one serious committed romance (Noah) to another (Frank).
> 
> This was written for trash-god on Tumblr. If you're looking for my WCtH blog, it's [here](https://abigailscafe.tumblr.com/).

In moments like these with Frank, everything seems easier. She’s not sure why. They’re only doing dishes together. But she’s starting to feel it whenever they’re together, no matter what they’re doing: sitting close on the sofa or walking around the pond, having tea or just talking.

It’s interesting, she thinks, that her life has brought her here, to this place and this point—that the choices both she and Frank made separately threw them in one another’s path.

* * *

 

Before she was Abigail Stanton she was Abigail Something-Else. Looking back, it exists almost a lifetime away. Life is a series of moving forward, not back; she isn’t that little girl anymore, the one who hurried through the Saturday washing so that she could sneak down to the water, pole in hand. Sometimes she misses that part of herself so much it hurts, and she wonders, in the quiet evenings by the fire, where that part of her has gone and who she might be now.

She loved Noah, and a part of her always will. They were hopelessly, foolishly in love back then, and stammered out their vows before they knew anything about one another. But she’d believed, in those days, that she knew the big things, what mattered the most. Noah was a passionate man with fire in his belly and a glint in his eyes. He was the sort of man who made her feel bold, like nothing could get between the two of them and the life they wanted for themselves.

The road twisted, but they persevered, even when idealistic romance peeled like old paint and left behind something raw and unfinished. By the time it happened neither of them minded it. There wasn’t anyone else; there couldn’t be. They might have married on a whim but they were determined to make it work between them, if not as an ideal relationship anymore, than at least a functional one.

Peter held them together, a child made of glue. She loved him more than she could ever love herself. It was easy to believe Noah felt similarly for his son, but the explosion at the mine and its aftershocks rocked the foundation upon which she’d placed that faith. She hated that—that someone like Henry Gowen could plant questions in her head that had never existed in the soil there before.

Of course Noah loved Peter—loved him more than most fathers could love their sons. But the questions lingered at the edges of her mind, Henry’s questions taking root: how could a man who loved his son, loved him more than he loved his wife or himself, lead him into that kind of danger?

Noah was a risk-taker. She’d once loved him for that, for his bravery and vision—his ability to see things that weren’t there yet but would be, someday. She still remembers the way his eyes lit up and his voice rang out when he got excited about an idea. The day he lifted her slight frame up into his arms and told her how great things could be for them if only they’d go west changed the course of her life. The problems of the city would be behind them. They could have land, maybe, and a nice house. A garden, if she wanted it. _Abigail_ , he’d whispered against her ear, looking out across the crowded cityscape from their dingy front stoop, _how do you feel about a dozen chickens?_

Now the thought makes her sad.

When the self-deprecation settles over her like a fog, she thinks she knows both reasons Noah walked back into that mine with their son. He had a plan, one she couldn’t see and wasn’t privy to, one he’d intended Peter to be a part of. Walking back into that mine made him look compliant, like he wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. It was a good set-up to dismantle things from the inside. She’ll always be proud of him for that, for daring to do something even though it took time and secrecy.

But the other reason he walked back into that mine with Peter was for her.

Maybe it’s selfish or silly of her to feel that way, because she knows that, at the end of Noah’s life, he wasn’t in love with her anymore, but he’d never stopped caring about her. When it’s too quiet in the café and it’s easy to overthink everything, she can’t help but let the years of their marriage wash over her. Their early married life was young and grand, full of dreams that slowly crumbled in the face of the struggles they’d endured living out of tents and cramped row-houses. He’d been frustrated and short-tempered, back then, because nothing good ever came easily to them, but she’d managed a veneer of capability. As he went from job to job she dutifully followed. The washing got done and she always tried to make sure there was enough food for his supper. He needed energy to do the work he found. Sometimes she had to lie to get him to eat all of it: she’d already eaten; she wasn’t hungry. He knew it wasn’t true but learned to accept it, allowed himself to pretend things were all right.

And for a while, she loved that about him, too.

But the leaving was always hard on her, and beneath the veneer that got her up in the morning and the wood chopped in his absence, that got supper on the table on time and Peter birthed and schooled and raised, she started to wither.

It could happen at any time: Noah coming home from a shift just to say they would be leaving in the morning. She couldn’t bear the thought of making friends only to lose them, but the lack of them, of adult company, of familiar sights and sounds, made her feel rootless and apprehensive, as if she had to watch her feet and her heart at all times to avoid attachment.

Then they moved to Coal Valley. Noah said, softly, on that first night from his own side of their makeshift bed on the floor, that they were done moving, done traveling. He was done running from one bad job to another; it was time to let something stick and to act when it didn’t work the way he wanted it to.

He never said that they were staying for her sake, but she wanted to believe it was—that he had seen her need and had finally responded to it.

But if she was the reason, Noah led Peter and the others into that mine for her, too; he’d promised her that first night that he was done running without acting and he meant to keep his word. She hates the way the knowledge sits like a lead bullet in her chest but there’s nothing to be done about it, now. Everyone makes mistakes; it’s what they learn from it that matters, and Abigail thinks she’s learned a lot.

Their marriage didn’t end up ideal, but there were lovely chapters of their life together that she wouldn’t trade for anything. Memories like to flicker through her mind in the uninterrupted hours of the early morning: watching Noah paint by the river—careful strokes that brought the world to life on canvas; the way she could always tell his mood from the tilt of his mouth no matter what lingered in his eyes; the shy fluttering in her chest the first time he said he loved her, months after they’d been married.

She’s proud of the closed chapters of her life—of the man she married and the son she raised, of the person she’s become.

The little girl who ran scampering down to the water to secretly fish for Sunday supper hadn’t known compassion or kindness the way Abigail Stanton knows it now. Forgiveness and second chances have become a personal mantra and she’s gotten better at loving with no reservations.

She told Frank once that she remembers what it was like to have been hungry, but her heart comes from more than that. It’s second nature to her, now, that compulsion to help others, to care about them. Maybe her greatest strength is also her greatest weakness, but she won’t let it make her bitter or afraid. Becky and Cody are just as much her children as Peter is; she won’t shy away from caring about them when they make her heart feel so full, not even when doing so leaves her vulnerable to being hurt again.

She’s certain Frank sees the untold stories in her eyes when they’re alone together, the paths she’s taken to get here that she can’t quite talk about yet. He never asks more from her than she is willing to give.

He knows it’s not something that can be explained—not easily, not in mere words. He understands her because he’s dealt with it, too. Frank Hogan wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Matt Landry, and Abigail Stanton wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Abigail Someone-Else. He remembers himself as having been a greedy fool, and she thinks of her younger self as a silly idealistic romantic, but they aren’t quite those people anymore, are they? They’ve learned from their old lives and are both working hard to make the most of where they are now.

But there are times when they’re together that she wonders about their younger selves. Before Matt Landry became a greedy fool, he was just a boy, and sometimes when he smiles at her in just the right light she can almost imagine the kind of person he’d been: carefree and fun with a gentle sense of humor and laughter in his eyes. Abigail Someone-Else might have liked him, but she could have never loved him—a man with no solid sense of direction.

She’s always believed in the idea of A Plan, but after the mine explosion, it was hard to think about. The idea that Noah and Peter’s deaths might have been a part of something bigger, that they might have had to die so that she could find her feet on a different path, made her feel sick to her stomach and her heart.

She knows that’s not the case, now. Noah and Peter didn’t die as part of a bigger plan. They died because the mine wasn’t safe and they went inside of it for a shift. The Plan, she’s sure, was God helping her to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, sometimes by leading her into the path of other people, some of whom needed her, and others whom she’d needed. Loss wasn’t the end of the book for her; it was only the end of that chapter. Now she’s in the process of turning the page and starting a new one, of taking her history with her onto fresh, clean pages.

It’s a peaceful thought—comforting in its simplicity.

* * *

 

She watches Frank dry a plate and thinks about how if their paths had converged 25 years ago they’d never be in this position together at the same time. She’s still watching him when he turns from the cupboard and holds out his hand for the next clean dish. He lifts his eyebrows at her when she doesn’t have anything ready, his expression equal parts concerned and amused.

“What is it?” he asks as she snaps herself out of her stupor and hurriedly washes the next dish. She holds it out to him, letting it drip.

His fingers brush against hers as he takes it from her.

Intentional.

It makes her feel fluttery, like she’s nineteen years old again and looking down at the next big adventure of her life.

“Do you ever feel…particularly fortunate?” she finally asks, her voice softer than she means for it to be.

The corners of his eyes crinkle. “I feel pretty fortunate right now, Abigail,” he tells her, an earnest smile pulling up one side of his mouth. “Why?”

She looks down at the water, emotions welling up in her chest like a spring, and starts scrubbing the next plate to buy time. The words aren’t quite there; there’s nothing in existence, she thinks, that can explain the way she feels right now for this man, but she has to say something.

She knows her eyes are shining when she lifts them to him. “I’m glad we always seem to be on the same page,” she manages, voice catching a little in the middle. “That we ended up here, somehow… Both of us…” She chooses her next words carefully, but they shake a little because she means them so much. “Not just… _because_ of everything, Frank, but in spite of it, too.”

She hopes he knows what it is she’s trying to say. If Noah hadn’t died, and Peter along with him, they wouldn’t be here together right now. She’s not at all glad for it, but there are many paths she might have taken after that tragedy that would not have led her here, to this, and that is what she’s grateful for: that she picked this path when there were so many others to choose from.

Frank’s eyes soften along with his smile. He understands her better than most, somehow—maybe because he’s come a long way, too, from the person he once was—and knows not to ask where this is coming from or if it means more than she’s letting on. He accepts it, just as he’s accepted her: for exactly who she is.

He sets the plate down so gently that it barely makes a sound and reaches for her face, the palm of his hand settling against her neck, his thumb brushing over her cheek.

He loves her. She knows that. He doesn’t have to say it; she feels it in little moments between them: affectionate touches and _I missed you_ s and when he looks at her like this, as if she means so much to him he can’t put it to words.

She hopes he understands that she feels it too, even though the words still feel too awkward and clumsy in her mouth to speak aloud.

His head dips and she thinks, for a moment, that he’ll kiss her.

He doesn’t.

He just rests his forehead against hers, eyes falling closed. “I give thanks for it every day,” he all but whispers. “And for you.”

His words are warm, but what makes her smile is the way his hair brushes over her nose. “Me?”

“There are so many reasons I’m blessed,” he says, and it’s his turn to have his voice trip over words that mean too much to speak lightly, “but to be in your life…” He pulls back slightly, eyes slowly opening as if he feels apprehensive about revealing this to her. “That you choose to let me be a part of it… That means a lot.”

She smiles, the motion almost wobbly, and wipes one of her soapy, water-wrinkled hands on her apron. “You’re in my _heart_ , too,” she tells him, lifting her hand to his hair, brushing it aside with a tenderness she hasn’t used on a grown man in years.

He looks for a moment as if he might cry, eyes glistening, but he swallows it down and strokes the side of her face with something that almost feels like awe, as if she’s said something he’s needed to hear all his life.

“And in mine,” he says, the words clumsy and rough despite his soft voice. Raw, she might have thought six months ago. Unfinished.

But she knows what he means, and the words as she hears them now may as well be sanded and beautifully stained. Her heart flutters almost shyly.

After all that she’s lost and endured, how is it that everything seems easier when she’s with him? It takes her a moment to get to the answer; of course she enjoys being with him: flirting, watching his teasing smile, enjoying the way his mouth feels against hers and the slip of his hair through her fingers.

But it’s something more—or at least something different.

With Frank, all the burdens and all of the _hurt_ of her life are easier to bear. It’s not that he makes her feel younger or lighter; she knows that. But his presence and support, their ability to communicate and lean on one another when things get difficult...has made her spirit stronger. Maybe her heart, too.

Affection washes over her and stings her eyes.

Frank smiles, then, softly, and lowers his head to hers. She lifts up on her toes to meet him. “Home,” she whispers just before they meet, so they can both feel the words against their lips. She hopes he understands her meaning.

Judging by the way he pulls her against him, fingers tangling in her hair, she feels certain that he does.

**Author's Note:**

>  _You are my best friend_  
>  And you are where my heart is  
> And I know at the day's end  
> I get to come home to you.  
> -[Home to You](https://youtu.be/TFbdrBxnqFI), John Michael Montgomery
> 
> Thank you for reading! Feedback, positive or critical, would be very much appreciated!


End file.
